A spaceship is leaking air rapidly, and soon everyone on board will die. The local chaplain does the mass absolution thing (the name of which I cannot remember at the moment), so that all may die in a state of grace. A nearby space station, hearing the distress calls, sends a small freighter to the rescue. The pilot, however, realizes that if he rescues the ship, it is statistically likely that someone aboard (it’s a big ship) will go apostate or otherwise sin mortally, and would not achieve heaven. If he does not rescue the ship, everyone aboard will die, but hopefully they will all go to Heaven. What gives?

The reverse situation is also troublesome. A spaceship (of the EVIL COALITION OF EVIL) blows up a space station. Another ship (of the GOOD COALITION OF GOOD) chases down the first ship. Because of the nature of spaceships and space combat, a single shot strike against the ECESS Evilface will completely destroy it, without hope of any survival of anyone aboard. Also by the nature of spaceships, every crewman aboard the ECESS Evilface knowingly and willfully brought about the destruction of the GCG Civilian Space Station Jerusalem 5. It is a requirement of civil and military justice that the GCGSS Goodface destroy the Evilface. But if they fire, they will kill everyone aboard, and presumably doom them to Hell. What gives?

This sort of question always reminds me of the old line, “What if there were no such thing as a hypothetical situation?”

The answer to your first scenario is, I think, obvious. Rescue the ship. It’s not our job to second guess the future. And it is emphatically not our job to do evil in the present (the sin of omission) by refusing to save lives because of some theory about what might happen someday. That’s just consequentialism of a particularly dangerous sort. You might as well kill everybody in the world since all of them are prone to commit *some* mortal sin at some point or another.

The second scenario is slightly more complex, but not much. First, there can be no morally binding “requirement of civil and military justice that the GCGSS Goodface destroy the Evilface” since the use of deadly force is a last, not a first, resort in Catholic teaching. The idea is that, under certain circumstances, you may have to kill, not that you get to kill (something many bellicose enthusiasts for pre-emptive war are still extremely unclear about). So the first thing to do is to order the ship to surrender. It is only if they try to attack or flee that you have the right to use deadly force—which you should do in order to prevent them from harming more lives. Once again, you are not responsible for the final destinies of the the crew. That’s God’s problem. You are responsible to protect the lives of innocents from a clear and present danger.

Unless you come up with a way, fast, to deliver health care that does not go against your principles, it does. At the moment they have something, while all you can offer is good wishes. Someone who needs to pay for chemotherapy NOW and can’t afford it, cannot cash good wishes.

When you have the alternative plan up and running, and providing, then you can talk about a hostage situation being avoidable. As it is, you must be ready for the worst case scenario: A cute kid with a serious disease who will look at the TV camera, with big eyes asking “Why do the bishops want me to die?”

Hostage situations are never pretty… that’s why proper planning is necessary not to get boxed into one.

Posted by CAU_Stanley on Sunday, Feb, 5, 2012 6:24 AM (EDT):

Adriana,

I don’t agree that the hostage situation is unavoidable. You speak as if it’s a foregone conclusion that we’re going to have to choose one or the other. The dichotomy imposed by this administration is immoral, and we must continue to strive for a government that respects religious liberty. If this administration is not willing to change its demands, then maybe it’s time for them to be retired from public service.

Susan Koman found out about hostages. Since Planned Parenthood provides help to poor women with breast cancer, cutting off Planned Parenthood means throwing those women under the bus.

When it comes to health care, the hostage situation is unavoidable now. Since most conditions that people suffer from have nothing to do with pregnancy in any stage or form, people who suffer from hypertensioon, or diabetes, or a broken leg and in need of rehab, or a stroke, or a heart condition, and have trouble paying for it will feel that the Catholic Church refusal to pay - to prevent abortions on someone else - is basically throwing them under the bus.

Difficult to talk about love and compassion then…

Posted by Adriana on Thursday, Feb, 2, 2012 9:01 PM (EDT):

What you have here is a hostage situation. According to where you come from, the hostages are the unborn children, or the uninsured. If you want to save the unborn children, you are turning your back on the uninsured, some of whom are in dire straits. If you want to help the uninsured they you have to turn your back on the unborn children.

In a hostage situation like this, there is no way to win.

The question is how did you manage to get in this situation, and could it have been avoided? How can you end up not bowing either to the advocates of abortion or those who should “let him die” to an uninsured man with diabetes?

No matter what you choose, it’ll suck.

Posted by EAC on Tuesday, Jan, 31, 2012 4:49 PM (EDT):

Only a Catholic site would post such a stupid “ethical” argument.

Posted by Tom R on Tuesday, Jan, 31, 2012 4:00 PM (EDT):

@co-walker:
“As you know, 90% of Catholics use contraceptives during their fertile years.”

What is the point of this statement? As you know, 100% of all Catholics are sinners. Again, your point please?

Posted by Tom R on Tuesday, Jan, 31, 2012 3:52 PM (EDT):

Hypotheses are nice. We live in the here and now. I even think that God said through His Son that He was the “God of the Living.” When will the Catholic Church renounce the evil of US government funding, sot that it can operate the way it chooses? (Hint: now would be a good answer.)

Unfortunately, even that doesn’t address the problem of the insurance plan mandate. What would help, but inexplicably never happens, is the excommunication of those government officials like Pelosi and Sebelius (among others) who claim the name “Catholic” when they practice infanticide, and mandate that Catholics provide for that practice.

Either the Catholic Church stands for public money or morals. You can’t have both. It’s time our leadership stepped up to the plate.

Posted by rover serton on Sunday, Jan, 29, 2012 9:20 PM (EDT):

As good as a bumper sticker logic gets: “Kill’em all, let God sort them out”. Don’t agree with it but it is pithy.

Posted by Sara on Sunday, Jan, 29, 2012 4:50 PM (EDT):

re:kris kaba : I applaud the Bishops, but I think “smart to late”. The Church played with the devil, did they not? They applauded Obama’s Heallth Care at its start?!! How and why could the American Church be in bed with the “party of death” aka, the Democrats, since after the reign of Kennedy to now??? Maybe the Bishops need to apologize to the Catholics who have had the foresight to see the moral depravity of democratic policy and bills and leadership; that they are sorry they got us into this mess. Then, (after admitting severe naitivity) begin to toughen: Excommunicate the Catholic Kathleen Siebulius’s, Kennedys, Pelosis, etc. of the United States, teach Humane Vitae, educate how contraceptive mentality DID contribute to abortion, euthanasia, human experimenting, breakdown of marriage, objectification of the human body, sex outside of marriage, STDs, etc. EDUCATE IN THE FAITH! Then, from the pulpits, tell the flock, “get tough, prepare for difficult times ahead…” . What we need is leadership, not compromise and fluffiness. Only dead fish float downstream. Once I attended a 3 day conference with Catholic priests, nuns and lay people. I asked (in a questionnaire format), ” Is it a mortal sin for a Catholic physician to dispense contraception, since all contraceptives can sometimes act as abortifacients.?” The priest deferred the question to the Bishop, and the Bishop muddled through the answer to a non-answer! What a let down it was and still. Today our solid Catholic, Pastor, read the letter re: forced coverage for sterilizations, abortifacients, contraception. He stated that Catholic hospitals would close: we will not participate in immoral activity. One third the parishoners applauded. One third??? This Obamination certainly has revealed the omissions, ignorance and weakness in the Catholic Church. Hopefully the roll over and play nice games will end, and our Bishops have awoken from a long slumber! Pray, fast and support the clear teachings of the Church. AND, GOD SPEED!

Posted by CAU_Stanley on Sunday, Jan, 29, 2012 7:35 AM (EDT):

BTW Psy, Nowhere in any of my statements have I asked homosexuals to explain themselves. I don’t know why you feel the need to bring that up. Homosexuals have unique needs, and we must work to ensure that they are welcomed by the Church as well. I pray that more homosexual men and women will find the grace to look past their immediate desires or ambitions and accept the truth of the Church’s teaching. I also pray that we will have the grace to embrace them as Christ would – with charity and truth.

Posted by CAU_Stanley on Sunday, Jan, 29, 2012 7:34 AM (EDT):

@ Psy - The notion that there is a “public” from which we should censor our religious convictions is ridiculous. You seem to presume that there is a mutually exclusive faith community and general public. Our faith was never meant to be practiced in a vacuum - it was meant to be lived and shared with the community. I am a member of the public, and I offer myself and my values in the service of the public.

If you’re assuming the mantle of spokesman for the “general public,” then I’d like to know how do you intend to meet the needs of your members (such as myself) who require access to the services offered by the Catholic community. I’m an infant developing in the womb - what are you doing to ensure that I see the light of day? I’m an orphan who needs a loving mother and father - tell me what you’re doing to look out for my rights. I’m a young teen who has questions - how are you going to explain the beauty of God’s gift of sexuality and the value of chastity? I’m an adult struggling to reconcile his mistakes/losses and move on - how can you assure me that I am loved and forgiven?

Fortunately for you, Mr. Spokesman, your suggestion that I go start a church is equally ridiculous. I have no need to start a church because we are blessed to have access to the services offered by the Catholic Church. There is a certain segment of the public that welcomes these services, and a certain segment that does not. What I resent is the federal government’s attempt to restrict my access to these services by trying to force the organizations that provide them to operate under conditions that are morally unacceptable. I’m not asking for “special privileges” as you state. I’m just asking for this administration to recognize our God-given right to strive for the greatest good and to avoid enabling moral evils.

I do not believe that the actions of this administration represent the will of the American people, but the radical agenda of a minority community. Hopefully we will all come to recognize this tyranny for what it is, and exercise our right to enact a peaceful regime change.

Posted by Loud on Saturday, Jan, 28, 2012 4:02 PM (EDT):

“So what would justify Catholic universities and hospitals terminating health insurance coverage for both Catholic and non-Catholic employees alike because some beneficiaries might choose to use the sterilization or contraceptive options someday.” -cowalker

@ cowalker: There is a differance. In one, you are choosing to NOT TERMANATE THE LIFE of someone who hasn’t made a choice as to whether they will do evil. In the other, you are PROMISING TO SUPPORT EVIL when it comes knocking on your door begging for help to kill its son or daughter.

Again, the first is saying, “I will not harm someone who may not be a threat” and the second says “I will help somebody when they come to me saying they want to murder someone in cold blood.” There is no leeway in the second, it is the government forcing a person to swear they will sin should they be asked to. That is the fact of what that mandate dose. The fact, plain and evil. If the only way to refuse to swear to perpetuate such an evil is to quit and disolve your entire company, then that is what must be done, even thought hurts me to even write that. It is scary, but is what makes the mandate so vile.

Posted by Joe S. on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 8:18 PM (EDT):

I’ve often got stuck in these kinds of mind games before, but it always helps me to remember that mortal sins are deliberate choices that people make; they don’t just come out of nowhere and whack you while you’re innocently walking down the street. So deciding not to save the spaceship in the first example isn’t like picking up a toddler who’s ignorantly walking along the side of a cliff. If one of the passengers gets off of the planet and then goes and gets an abortion or something, it’s her own fault, not yours, and if she went to hell, she would deserve it, as sad as that would be.

Someone remind me when pregnancy became a disease that required treatment under ‘health’ insurance.

Posted by Erin Manning on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 5:36 PM (EDT):

Scenario 1: As the pilot of the rescue ship is hesitating, a temporal window opens and a futuristic version of his own ship comes racing madly into view. “Quick, save everybody!” the future version of himself shouts to the present-day version of himself via whatever transmitting technology these ships use. “Your future wife is aboard that ship! If you don’t save her and get married, your—our—whatever six children will never be born, and I have it on excellent future authority that the consequences for the galaxy in about 300 years when our family’s descendents are peacefully and benevolently ruling the whole show will be DIRE!”

Scenario 2: You fire a warning shot at the Evilface, order them to surrender, etc. They refuse and open fire. Six crew members of the Goodface die heroically in the exchange—and all of them are people who otherwise might not have made it into heaven, but their heroic self-sacrifice to rescue others from a damaged area of the ship outweighs their lives full of selfishness and sin. The Evilface is eventually destroyed, but most of the crew members, realizing that death is at hand, repent mightily and are also saved.

And the destruction of the Evilface causes a mutiny within the Evil Coalition of Evil, so that splinter groups form: the Not So Bad Let’s Talk About Things Coalition of Compromise, the Interested In This Whole Good Thing Coalition of the Willing, etc. The power of evil once again proves that it’s like the power of sugarless gum: sticky, flavorless, and hard to chew for very long.

Posted by Psy on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 5:23 PM (EDT):

CAU_Stanley, my other response to you seems to be held for moderation for some unknown reason.

Posted by Psy on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 5:09 PM (EDT):

ChrisKABA, insurance companies who offer contraceptive are able to offer lower prices as they assume people will use them saving the insurance company the cost of paying for births and related medical expenses of raising children. Having contraceptives in the healthcare plan does not obligate you to use them. It would be honorable to pay higher rates to exclude contraceptive from a health plan for those who are willing pay extra.

Posted by Psy on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 4:45 PM (EDT):

@CAU_Stanley, You are free to stay out of the public market if it conflicts with your beliefs. Also the general public isn’t concerned with what the church believes or intends when they wish to adopt a child or go to a hospital or take a job. Since your beliefs are not compatible with the public market you may consider simply opening a church so as not to comprise your beliefs as opposed to demanding others compromise their beliefs to satisfy your self-proclaimed entitlement to special privileges.

In the public market gays are under no obligation to explain or justify themselves to you or anyone else.

Posted by ChrisKABA on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 4:44 PM (EDT):

@cowalker

Insurance companies don’t operate in a vaccuum, nor are they able to provide or deny coverage based on whether their customers will or won’t use certain items of that coverage.

The entire point of the mandate is to force insurers to provide coverage for those things, and everyone ends up paying for those things.

The issue is not whether individuals will, or even might, use such “services”, the issue is with employers being forced to support them, and along with their employees, pay for them.

The Catholic Church isn’t as worried about what a world that already hates it will think, as much as what God will think of everyone who insists that human whim is more important than God’s laws.

Don’t blame the Church for the attempt of a government to try to force it to do something completely unacceptable.

Posted by anna lisa on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 4:44 PM (EDT):

Toward the end of my father’s dental practice he said that his malpractice insurance had become so astronomical, that it defeated the purpose. My O.B. had to nearly quit, when he lost a “wrongful birth” malpractice suit. A family friend stopped delivering babies at all. As long as we are talking about hypothetical spaceships, how about hypothetical Catholics that start hospitals and a health care system that is completely ethical,open to all, (on a sliding scale) with ethics committees and no malpractice lawsuits? We can fantasize can’t we? About Catholics that start hospitals?

Posted by GeekLady on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 3:46 PM (EDT):

@cowalker. We cannot do evil that evil might come from it either. I’m a little amazed that needed saying at all.

Posted by CAU_Stanley on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 3:40 PM (EDT):

@Psy - I agree that the rescue ship pilot in the hypothetical scenario might be in over his head, but your attempt to affiliate this scenario with Catholic adoption agencies isn’t close to accurate. Who’s needs are you talking about in this situation? The needs of homosexual couples aren’t likely to be answered by adopting a child. Meanwhile, the child needs a home with a mother and a father. The Church advocates without prejudice for the greatest good of the child in this situation. It’s a shame that children in some states will no longer have access to that level of compassion.

Posted by CAU_Stanley on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 3:22 PM (EDT):

@ cowalker -

You just affirmed the fact that paying a premium means paying into a system that offers compensation for (as you call it) sin. I want to have access to a health care system that does not subsidize morally evil actions. I want to be able to boycott those health care systems systems that do. The government is telling me that I can’t do that. That’s the whole problem.

You seem to be trying to portray this as an issue of Church hierarchy vs the faithful. You suggest that the Church needs to choose the lesser of two evils. You suggest that the Church needs to capitulate with the will of this administration, which is holding the employees of Catholic organizations hostage.

I am not a member of the “Church institution” as you call it, but I am a member of the Church. I’m very glad to see our leadership taking a stand on this - the Obama administration certainly isn’t doing anything to protect our liberties. As a member Catholic community, I hope to see us collectively stand up against this oppression by the goverment. I pray that we can achieve a greater good than the poor dichotomy offered by President Obama’s administration. I hope to see continued health care coverage for these employees AND a health care system that does not subsidize moral evil.

Posted by Psy on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 3:01 PM (EDT):

In the first scenario the pilot of the rescue ship should get out of the rescue business as there are many more pilots willing and able to replace him with out prejudice towards those in need. I commend the Catholic adoption agencies for conceding there are others more qualified to provide public adoptions services.

Posted by Joshua Packard on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 2:50 PM (EDT):

@ cowalker
Who is anyone to force Catholics who run organizations to provide resources for activities that we consider sinful? If you want “health” insurance that covers sterilization, abortion, contraception, get someone else to pay for it or pay for it yourself. No government can force my institution to pay any of the cost of that procedure which I regard as a mortal sin against God. If you want to work for a Catholic organization, you have no right to demand that we fund or provide for your sinful activities in the name of “health care”. If you want contraception or sterilization, etc. pay for it yourself, or get your health insurance somewhere else. Don’t force us to pay for it for you when we believe it is sinful and merits damnation if done in the knowledge that God condemns it. You have the right to go and work somewhere else, and get your “health” insurance somewhere else.

Posted by Michigan_Pat on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 2:48 PM (EDT):

Church: We don’t “do” abortions.
Government: Well then, just pay for them.
Church: We don’t want to pay for them.
Government: Well, pretend that your money only pays for stuff you want to pay for.
Church: We want to pretend you don’t pay for abortions.
Goverment: Ok. Sounds good. Send in the money.
Church: We just sent a pretend check for the premium payment.
Government: No, you must really pay.
Church: For pretend health coverage? How about REAL monopoly money?
Governement: That’s rediculous.
Church: Ah, now you’re starting to get it.
Government: Get what?

Posted by cowalker on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 1:49 PM (EDT):

CAU_Stanley on Friday, Jan 27, 2012 4:30 AM (EST):
“@ cowalker - Because this isn’t a hypothetical situation about what might happen in the future. It’s about what actuall[y] does happen with each insurance premium paid.”

No, when the insurance premium is paid it merely makes the person paying eligible to receive compensation to pay for services. It is his or her choice—or sin in your view—when they use the services. Plenty of Catholics are already paying insurance premiums on policies that cover sterilization. If you have health insurance as an employee of the federal government you are probably paying premiums that help to finance sterilization. It would be pretty hypothetical to suppose that simply providing financial compensation for a procedure or product will cause a person to change their mind about whether it’s sinful or not. In other words, if they exercise their option to receive payment to cover sterilization or contraceptives, they already believed it was a moral choice. As you know, 90% of Catholics use contraceptives during their fertile years.

There is nothing hypothetical about the damage that will be done to employees who are losing healthcare insurance. I suspect that if Catholic institutions simply stop offering health insurance benefits to all hospital employees and university employees it will not impress the public with how much the Church as an institution is suffering. Instead they will see it as the institutional Church deliberately inflicting suffering on worker bees who are not even Catholic, as often as not. Who ACTUALLY suffers in this scenario, the folks without a voice who lose insurance, or the members of the hierarchy making the decision who get coverage by other means?

Posted by Jared B. on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 1:14 PM (EDT):

@Pat Yeah I’ve actually butted up against that argument, against an evangelical Christian friend considering an abortion. She was familiar with Catholic doctrine’s nudging away from Limbo and toward the charitable presumption that children who die before baptism may be in heaven, and threw that in my face, implying that I couldn’t possibly have any pro-life counterargument. I offered a less science-fictiony version of that thought experiment, hoping it would spell out how ridiculous is the idea that the presumption that some other person will go to heaven grants permission to KILL that person right then & there.

Posted by DtMcCameron on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 1:09 PM (EDT):

I say, it’s not every day that you get hypotheticals “in spaaaaaaace!”

...We should do it more often.

Posted by Christian Ohnimus on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 12:53 PM (EDT):

That was fun.

Posted by Charlie Venus on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 12:20 PM (EDT):

If I remember correctly on more than one occasion St.Padre Pio told confessors that he could remove their sufferings but it would or could jeprodize their souls? In otherwords bear with the situation and go to heaven or gamble with your soul.

Posted by Pat on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 12:04 PM (EDT):

By letting the people in the good spaceship die you would be depriving them of any more merit they could gain on Earth and limiting their future glory in Heaven. It’s like if we could know for sure aborted babies went to Heaven (I’m pretty sure the doctrine of Limbo is still taught but let’s assume there’s a possibility of them going to Heaven). Abortion would still be wrong in that case because the aborted babies would be deprived the chance to live a full life and grow in grace throughout their lives.

Posted by RMMT on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 10:46 AM (EDT):

Forcing institutions to provide a “service” which is neither *medically* necessary nor morally acceptable is wrong on many counts (too many to list here). Why not let the “free market” sort it out? If people are so committed to obtaining contraception and sterilization services, they certainly have the right to find employment elsewhere.

Posted by CAU_Stanley on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 6:30 AM (EDT):

@ cowalker - Because this isn’t a hypothetical situation about what might happen in the future. It’s about what actuall does happen with each insurance premium paid.

By paying that premium, not only is the payer securing for himself and his family/organization a set of services which may or may not be used. He is buying into a system that actively ensures the delivery of chemicals that are both extremely hazardous to the physical health of people developing in utero and poisonous to the spiritual health of those who use them.

Furthermore, the government is seeking to eliminate any insurance organization that does not aid in the distribution of these hazardous chemicals. The question becomes, “Do we accept that ECESS Evilface will have a monopoly on space travel, knowing that some will be poisoned and killed by using their services, or do we forego space travel for a period of time and do everything we can to ensure that people have the option to travel on GCCSS Goodface?”

Posted by enness on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 5:46 AM (EDT):

cowalker, could the comparison be more apples-to-oranges? I don’t really know what else to say to you.

Posted by cowalker on Friday, Jan, 27, 2012 3:14 AM (EDT):

“It’s not our job to second guess the future. And it is emphatically not our job to do evil in the present (the sin of omission) by refusing to save lives because of some theory about what might happen someday.”

I totally agree. So what would justify Catholic universities and hospitals terminating health insurance coverage for both Catholic and non-Catholic employees alike because some beneficiaries might choose to use the sterilization or contraceptive options someday?

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Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is The Work of Mercy (Servant) and The Heart of Catholic Prayer (Our Sunday Visitor). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column “Connecting the Dots” for the National Catholic Register. Mark is known nationally for his one minute “Words of Encouragement” on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.